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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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expected , andTeeeived ^ the thiog sought without a moment ' s delay . Even tem ^ ral blessings , it has been thought , migbt be thus obtained . Disease is stated to have left patients " apparently in answer to prayer . " Prayer " for a definite object" is held to be of great efficacy if " agonizingly brooght to bear" upon it . These revivals are * in fact * based on the groundless idea that they are the special work of God . Let them be looked upon as the natural results of human feeling and contrivance—let the idea of any thins
extraordinary and preternatural be taken away , and the greater part of that which supports them in the public mind would be taken away also . " It is the work of God , " is the declaration that carries awe and contagious fear over the minds of the bulk of the people . This represses inquiry , silences doubt , spreads anxiety and apprehension among the timid , and emboldens the confidence of the forward and presumptuous * The impression of something supernatural is very obvious and striking at times , in case of the conversion of an individual , especially if he be noted from any cause , and the event takes place in a time of general indifference . The conversion is often
a prominent topic of public conversation , prayers ^ and sermons , for weeks together . The people talk of it with awe and rapture in their countenances , according as fear or triumph predominates in their minds ; the whole neighbourhood feels as if the power of God had appeared in the midst of it ; the Masters of Revivals wear a face of solemn importance , as if some great
thing bad happened . The extraordinary convert is brought forward and shewed off , or it may be he shews himself off by going into the assembly of the people and proclaiming that he who was yesterday a totally depraved sinner is to-day a favoured child of God and a happy heir of heaven . And what is the great thing that has happened ? Why , at the utmost , that this man is convinced of his sins , and is resolved to amend : he has been a bad
man , and he means to be a good man ;—a very interesting purpose certainl y * but furnishing no reason for so extraordinary a sensation . Men often make resolutions to be better , but they do not think it necessary to proclaim them , nor others to take notice of them . The Congregational Magazine , in an article on the subject of Revivals ,
containing many excellent remarks , questions this too generally prevailing notion that they are produced b y an extraordinary influence of the Holy Spirit , and that such an influence is the great thing to be sought for by earnest and united prayer . The tenderness , however , with which it speaks , shews plainly the extensive prevalence of this most unwarrantable
conception , even in England . In plainer terms they deal with this notion when mixed up , as it too often is , with high , that is true , Calvinistic sentiments . Speaking of persons under the influence of these errors , they say—and we hope their voice will prove a word in season— ' They are so wrapped up in the sovereignty of God , that they cannot even see the responsibility and agency of man . Warm in their imagination , enthusiastic in feeling , supralapsarian in theology , and superior to the trammels of set rules , strict precepts , and systematic means , they live upon novelties and wonders in
religious experience ; . they are longing for miracles and particular revelations ; they pore over the prophecies and the high metaphors of scripture with delight , as affording scope to their fancy ; and their religion for the most part consists in the indulgence and the narration , of a delightful or an awful dream . T * komqv is their cry ; and the ordinary course of events , the steady working of system , of means * and of principles , they can neither understand nor appreciate : hurried along with the popular stream , some more ardent , more ambitious than the rest , would be foremost and uppermost in the tide
Untitled Article
558 The Watchman .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1829, page 558, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2575/page/38/
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